SHAMBHALA SUN SEPTEMBER 2013 65
the lama’s translator. When they stopped
at a red light, however, Stathacos suddenly
bolted from the car. “It’s not time for me
to do this yet,” she blurted out.
Now Stathacos speculates that she
wasn’t ready to go with the lama in 1975
because her focus was so much on art
that she had nothing to spare for spiritual
life. She was only five years old when she
announced to her mother that she was an
artist and “that was that,” she says.
Stathacos—born in 1951 in Buffalo,
New York—was raised Greek Orthodox.
But, she asserts, “I was precocious in Sun-
day school. I never understood why there
wasn’t a female in the Trinity and I would
always ask, ‘Where’s Mary?’ At that time
women couldn’t go behind a certain point
in the altar, so I would ask, ‘Well, why is
Mrs. Pappas allowed there to clean?’”
It wasn’t until the late 1990s that Sta-
thacos finally connected with a spiritual
female voice. She was traveling in India
when a friend invited her to a talk by Jet-
sunma Tenzin Palmo, a Western Buddhist
nun who’d been in retreat in a Himalayan
cave for twelve years. In the middle of the
talk, Tenzin Palmo asked the audience, “Do
you understand?” And Stathacos thought:
Oh, God, I understand that I don’t under-
stand, and now I have to get a teacher.
Today Stathacos is a student of Gehlek
Rinpoche and a founding director of
Dongyu Gatsal Ling Initiatives. It’s an
organization dedicated to reclaiming the
lost traditions of Tibetan women practi-
tioners by supporting nunneries in India
and Tibet. Stathacos’ Buddhist practice
also informs her art. This can be seen
most clearly in her Rose Mandalas, one of
which she made for the Dalai Lama when
he attended the 2006 conference Law,
Buddhism, and Social Change at the Uni-
versity of Buffalo.
The Rose Mandalas range from ten
to sixty feet in diameter, and Stathacos
makes them by plucking apart roses and
circling the petals around mirrors. When
the mandalas are fresh, they’re florally fra-
grant. Then over time the petals shrivel.
Finally, the mandalas are dismantled in a
ritual performance; they’re swept up or
blown away with human breath.
In Tenzin Palmo’s words, “The Rose
Mandalas symbolize the gradual unfold-
ing of our innate spiritual potential. Con-
versely, these mandalas remind us of the
inherent impermanence of even the
beautiful.”
Ritual is at the heart of much of Sta-
thacos’ creative output, particularly the
ritual of wish-making. In 2001, Statha-
cos visited rock gardens in Japan and at
one temple in Kyoto, the monks showed
her some large stones covered with snow.
They said that taken together these stones
were in the form of the Buddha reclining.
This inspired Stathacos to create Refuge,
a Wish Garden, an interactive public art-
work that she has presented on both Ger-
man and American soil.
Refuge, a Wish Garden comprises a cir-
cle of sand with a large tree in the center.
Around the tree there are eight wooden
benches, painted eight different colors, and
between the benches there are baskets filled
with strips of fabric, rocks, sticks, and flow-
ers. The public is invited to sit and engage
in quiet contemplation. Then they can
make a wish and take an action—to tie a
piece of fabric to the tree, place a rock or
flower, or use a stick to draw in the sand.
Stathacos is fascinated by the fact that
people across the globe tend to make
wishes on natural objects, such as when
they see a shooting star or when they toss a
coin into a body of water. More than that,
she’s fascinated by wishes themselves and
has collected them from the public world-
wide, including from homeless youth.
“When you give people the opportu-
nity to write down their wishes,” Statha-
cos says, “you might think most of them
would say they want something mate-
rial.” But in fact people frequently think
beyond themselves. They think compas-
sionately. Here is one that has touched
her: “I wish that bullets would turn to
roses and hatred to friendship.” ♦
ANDREA MILLER is deputy editor of the
Shambhala Sun and the editor of the anthology
Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful Aware-
ness into Our Relationships.
Above: The Dalai Lama with the Rose Mandala
created for the conference Law, Buddhism, and Social
Change. Below: Two photos of Stathacos’ interactive
artwork, the Wish Machine, which is a refabricated
vending machine that dispenses wishes.
PHOTOSCOURTESYOFTHEARTIST